The Dark Lord's Disorder
by verbal diarrhea
Summary: What happens when the Dark Lord suffers from an anxiety disorder? This.


Disclaimer: I don't own HP. 

This may or may not become a series of HP psychological problems/personality disorders.

The Dark Lord's Disorder

Lord Voldemort was not having a good day. He had been feeling irritable and acting rather…oddly for a while. He noticed that his behavior had been rather peculiar as of late, but didn't think anything of it until Nagini had so helpfully informed him. So now, instead of researching ways to achieve immortality and kill the Potter brat, he was sitting in the Riddle Manor library researching disorders.

What he found did not amuse him.

He decided he might have a mild to moderate form of obsessive-compulsive disorder. All the symptoms certainly fit. He had been snapping at his Death Eaters for a while about maintaining his privacy and to not, under any circumstances, touch his books! Or his desk, quills, or anything else in his private quarters.

He had realized he had a slight problem when he was cleaning his books by hand because he didn't trust magic, and that it was taking hours out of his time. However, due to the fact that the _grime_ on the books had been bothering him, he found it soothing to be able to touch his books without having to wash his hands every time he wanted to pick up a _clean_ quill to make a note. Sure, it was annoying, but he just wouldn't feel truly comfortable until the cleaning was done. Personally. By hand.

Sure it had been interrupting his schedule, but such trivial tasks such as planning raids could easily be passed onto some of his most faithful followers.

Of course, his cleaning was quickly negated when the incompetent good-for-nothing Death Eaters would ruin, absolutely ruin, his hard work and contaminate everything. It was sort of okay to clean all his books once, but Voldemort found it to be dangerously, homicidally annoying to clean all the books a second time. And a third, and a fourth and so on.

The Death Eaters found this all painfully irritating as well, and Nagini hadn't been that thrilled either. Especially not when she had to be cleaned every time she was about to enter Voldemort's private chambers.

Which was why the most feared Dark Lord Voldemort was glaring at The Anxiety & Phobia Workbook by Edmund J. Bourne, Ph.D.

He did not like this. He had read other books about obsessive-compulsive disorder before this one, and one of the reasons suggested for this problem is because the afflicted individual wishes to have some control in their life. Voldemort is the Dark Lord, he already had control. The mere mention of his name was enough to induce heart attacks in the elderly and to cause small children to scream or run around in circles out of fear.

The mere thought of a Dark Lord with control issues was laughable.

Another reason stated that the disorder was due to a deficiency of a neurotransmitter called serotonin, or due to a disturbance in serotonin metabolism, which would imply depression. This was also laughable.

Voldemort made up his mind and stood up suddenly, causing the books on his lap to tumble to the floor.

"I am Lord Voldemort, and I have a problem," he announced to the silent room. "But I don't believe I'm OCD. I can't be OCD. I am not depressed, and I certainly do not have control issues. I am the most powerful wizard alive. People, both magical and Muggle, fall to their knees in fear before me. I HAVE CONTROL!"

Voldemort stood there for a few minutes, breathing a bit heavily from the amount of anger and frustration he injected into his rant. He then looked down at his feet. It was almost as if the stones of the manor were holding their breath, so silent was the environment.

He felt his left eye twitch spastically as he stared down at the books lying on the floor.

"Damn it!" he cursed as he went to retrieve a rag.

A/N: I sat down to write the next chapter to SoS, HoG because I had an idea, and this came out instead. O.o;; weird.

OCD is an anxiety disorder, and everything technical in here is true. People who have OCD generally tend to know that they have a problem. They also want to get rid of it. Imagine if you had the urge to check everything numerous times (ex. Going half-way to work, then having to go back and check that the stove really is off 15 times because of a compulsion), or cleaning things endlessly, etc. It's bad.

Also, a lot of people with OCD just experience obsessions.

OCD is also quite different from the Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (anankastic personality disorder). People suffering from OCPD don't feel the urge to perform ritualistic actions (compulsive hand washing), but rather stress perfectionism above all else (preoccupation with details/order/bodily functions/etc until the major point of the activity is lost, unable to complete an assignment because the perfect standards are not met, inflexibility and others).


End file.
